The Tribune

By RENALDO DORSETT

Sports Reporter

rdorsett@tribunemedia.net

St Augustine’s College’s junior boys became the first team to claim one of the four coveted Bahamas Association of Independent Secondary Schools (BAISS) softball titles this year.

Big Red Machine completed a two-game sweep of the St Andrew’s Hurricanes, winning 9-3 yesterday at the Freedom Farm Complex, to claim their third consecutive championship.

On the junior girls’ side, the Hurricanes showed resilience by evening the series with the Big Red Machine with a 6-5 win to force a third and deciding game. Game three is set for 4pm today at Freedom Farm.

SAC junior boys’ head coach John Todd said he expects his talented group of returning players to win at least five consecutive titles before their run expires.

“I project this team to win not just three, or four, but I would say five,” he said. “We only have four players advancing to the senior division so this has a chance to be a special team. We have 14 players returning and that is what keeps the programme going. We bring in a lot of talented seventh graders from Freedom Farm and JBLN. They come in seasoned and we guide that along so it helps to build the programme, which has been good for us. Competition to make the team itself is stiff so it keeps everyone on their toes.”

The Big Red Machine were forced to come from behind again.

In the series opener they trailed 9-6 before they ended the game on an 8-0 run and used another 8-0 run to clinch game two.

The Hurricanes took an early 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first when Dylan Knowles scored on a wild pitch and Najee Osbourne drove in an RBI single.

Leon Miller would break the ice for the Big Red Machine when he scored his team’s first run on a wild pitch in the bottom half of the inning.

Hurricanes’ pitcher Scott Roberts was dominant on the mound early on and stifled the SAC lineup in the opening innings.

In the third he struck out the first hitter he faced, forced a groundout and pop up to retire the side.

Knowles scored again for the Hurricanes, after an error, to take a 3-1 lead.

It was in the fourth inning that SAC mounted a rally to take control for good and again ended the game with eight unanswered runs.

An RBI double from Kyle McKinney began the run for the Big Red Machine to trim the deficit to one.

Miller would plate the equaliser on a sacrifice fly, and McKinney would score on another sacrifice fly to give the Big Red Machine the go-ahead score.

A two-RBI double from Johnathan McFall gave his team a 6-3 lead by the end of the inning.

“What they did was switch the pitcher from game one. He’s new and he had some control problems as the game wore on,” Todd said. “We were getting used to him in the first few innings, but after that, once we were able to load the bases, we know we had something special.”

For the Big Red Machine, Charlton Ferguson led at the plate as he finished 2-3 with two RBI and two runs scored.

McFall and Miller each added two runs, while Alex Johnson, Travis Davis and Thaige Wallace also crossed the plate.

Results of both game twos in the senior divisions were unavailable up to press time last night.

In game one of the girls’ series, the Big Red Machine won 7-2 over the Hurricanes and in the boys’ division, the CW Saunders Cougars won 7-5 over the Big Red Machine.